Last Wednesday night on March 23rd the Crane Trust enjoyed wind gusts up to 50 mph and thunder-snow. This storm was interesting to watch, but caused us to cancel blind tours as even the hardy sandhill crane does not fly well in these winds. By observation here at the…

The total SACR Aerial count for the Big Bend of the Platte was 112,000 down from a peak count of 413,000 on March 14th and a count of 276,000 last week on March 21st. Today was a good migration day with warm weather…

At the end of last week, Slate, Crimson, and Indigo made their way to Nebraska. Although we have seen a large number of cranes migrate to Nebraska earlier than average this year, the four lesser sandhill cranes we are tracking are right on schedule.

Sandhill crane numbers remained high this morning. However, conditions are good for birds to start migrating north today and tomorrow. We counted 276,000 with a +/- 10.8% absolute error. There was not really an up or down bias consulting the directionality of…

Continuation of a Historic Migration… This week we counted the most Sandhill Cranes recorded via our protocol since regular roost surveys began in 2002. We recorded 395,000 Sandhill Cranes in the river and 15,000 in the fields adjacent to the river, totalling 410,000. Our…

Last weekend, the Crane Trust Nature & Visitor Center presented its inaugural Great Plains Art Show featuring Nebraska artists and Nebraska-inspired art. Friday night was a reception for the artists, with the art show running from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

The total Sandhill Crane count for 03/08/2016 was 239,500 with an error of +/- 7.14% estimated from photo subplots. There were 63,500 Sandhill Cranes on Crane Trust Properties. The overall count is up from last week by about 26,000. We usually start…

Four sandhill cranes that the Crane Trust has been tracking spent the winter in northwest Texas, close to where our partners from Texas Tech first put tracking devices on the cranes’ legs one year ago. The tracking device is called a platform transmitter terminal (PTT) and it sends signals…

The total count of Sandhill Cranes in the Big Bend Region of the Platte River (Chapman to Overton, NE, just over 80 miles) was 213,600 (+/-5.05%) on Monday, February 29, 2016. This is by far the largest number of cranes counted in…